Here’s a bit of a curious survey from iShare, looking at various aspects of dreaming.
Demographics
Between the 10th and 15th of December 2009 571 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 51.7% of the sample were male, 32.4% in their twenties, 29.2% in their thirties, and 38.4% in their forties.
I’m not really sure if I dream in colour or black and white. I don’t really see many dreams these days, but I cannot really picture how I could tell what colour my dream was. Is this just me?
Oh, and “Do you dream in colour?” is a song I liked from Bill Nelson:
Computers and cell phones are making most of the respondents to this survey from iShare ill, with stiff shoulders and dry eye being the two most common symptoms of technostress.
Demographics
Between the 8th and 11th of December 2009 491 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 55.6% of the sample were male, 35.6% in their twenties, 27.5% in their thirties, and 36.9% in their forties.
I hardly ever get any particular complaint from using PCs or mobiles, except for tired eyes that go away after just a quick break.
Stiff shoulders (katakori) are, as far as I can determine, a typically Japanese response to stress where in the west it would probably be a headache or migraine. Dry eye, however, is I suspect (in my totally and utterly non-medical opinion) a reaction to overuse of eye drops. Attend any event from the cinema to the theatre and you’ll see lots of people topping up (replacing) their tears with various over-the-counter medicine. The big manufacturers even sell a junior eyedrop for children, but if your kid isn’t producing tears you should be seeing a doctor, not self-medicating! Read the rest of this entry »
Between the 20th and 26th of November 2009 484 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 59.7% were male, 33.3% in their twenties, 32.2% in their thirties, and 34.5% in their forties.
One that I was suprised and disappointed didn’t have a category of its own was calling your wife “mother”. Many Japanese seem to adopt this as soon as they have a kid, so I’d have liked to have had concrete data on this.
The most popular kinds of mildly-embarrassing nicknames were adding “-tan” or “-nyan” after names.
We don’t bother with suffixes or nicknames in this house, and adding “-chan” after names usually indicates a request for something is coming soon… Read the rest of this entry »
With Facebook perhaps poised to do a full-on launch in Japan, iShare decided to look at Facebook’s requirement for real names, and real names on the internet in general.
Demographics
Between the 7th and 10th of December 2009 492 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.4% of the sample were male, 30.1% in their twenties, 28.5% in their thirties, and 41.5% in their forties.
I’ve got no problem using my real name, although I know my wife is pretty paranoid about doing so for various reasons that seem rather unclear to me. “People will know who you are and…” but I never find out what comes after the “and”. This does seem to be a rather common trait on the Japanese internet, as more often than not there are no names and no unobscured faces adorning the average blog.
This recent survey from iShare into 2009 usage patterns for mobile phones revealed a few surprises for me, not least that One Seg terrestrial digital broadcast decoding and music playing features were quite low on the lists of both used and useful features.
Demographics
Between the 2nd and 7th of December 2009 541 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 56.6% of the sample were male, 35.1% in their twenties, 28.7% in their thirties, and 36.2% in their forties.
In Q1 I’m really surprised to see over 15% of the iShare demographic does not have a mobile phone. As far as I am aware, and refering to other survey companies like goo Research and MyVoice, penetration is around 95%, so I’m not really sure what makes iShare so low. Are people being too smart for their own good and answering no because they have a PHS-based device, or is there a lot of data card and 3G dongle users?
As I’m married, my main voice and email partner was of course my better half. The most used and most useful feature was of course email. Answering for my wife, she probably exchanges more email in total with friends, although counting them individually I’m probably her main mail contact. As for voice, her mother wins by 1.6 kilometres. Read the rest of this entry »
Let’s end the year on a low point, by looking at a recent survey from iShare into how 2009 was financially.
Demographics
Between the 18th and 24th of December 2009 505 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 56.6% of the sample were male, 30.7% in their twenties, 33.3% in their thirties, and 36.0% in their forties.
2009 was pretty horrendous for me – I recently got my end of year tax summary which showed that my salary was down close to 10% due to both stealth cuts through the bonus system and a renegotation of the overtime system which results in more money in my monthly pay-packet but less in the bonus. Also this year our mortgage discount rate ran out, which was another few percentage off the family budget. On the What Japan Thinks front, AdSense revenue has never recovered from two years ago when it suddenly died for reasons that were never too clear. Traffic is about double from then, but click-through and earnings per click are down. I’ve never really managed to understand affiliate advertising, despite many attempts… Read the rest of this entry »
Bah humbug! To get you into the Christmas spirit, or to give you something to grumble about this festive season, according to a survey from iShare into Santa Claus many (far too many!) Japanese teach their kids about Santa.
Demographics
Between the 3rd and 8th of December 2009 541 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 58.6% of the sample were male, 31.6% in their twenties, 31.4% in their thirties, and 37.0% in their forties.
Regarding Q3SQ1, I think I became aware due to a combination of playground talk and discovering Santa’s present stash hidden in a cupboard. I wouldn’t want to teach my kids about Santa and would probably try to combine the event with the existing Japanese tradition of Otoshi-dama, presents of cash at the New Year. I’m not sure about Q3SQ2 – do Japanese parents regularly dress up to hand out the gifts to kids? My parents always sneaked in when we were asleep, and I always imagined that was standard behaviour.
I’ll be out myself for an evening on both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day after work, but we’ll be trying to avoid the Christmas menus! My wife’s off to the dentist, in fact, this Christmas Day! Read the rest of this entry »
It’s coming up to the New Year, and one of the traditional television events is NHK’s Kohaku Uta Gassen, or the Red and White Song Contest, where a team of male singers and male-fronted groups compete against the female side in an excuse to highlight the popular music of the year, both pops and the traditional Enka form. There’s usually about twenty to thirty acts per side and the whole affair starts around 7 pm and continues until just before midnight. However, this year the satellite channel BS11 is showing the Anison Kohaku 2009, Red and White Animation Song 2009 at the same time, so iShare decided to conduct a survey into New Year song contest viewing plans.
Demographics
Between the 27th of November and the 2nd of December 2009 515 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 54.4% of the sample were male, 31.5% in their twenties, 33.0% in their thirties, and 35.5% in their forties.
I’ll probably end up watching about half of NHK’s Kohaku. One interesting feature this year is the appearance of Yutaka Oe, a young Enka singer infatuated with the legendary Saburo Kitajima, and who got his break through Sanma’s Karakuri Television, where he often appears bumbling his way through his singing career. One line I remember was when he got taken out for dinner with people from his record label; they went to a Chinese and were served a whole roast chicken, whereupon he asked the waiter in all innocence if it was a small dog.
I can compare his career to Susan Boyle’s, as there was a lot of talk in her case that she had some form of learning difficulty and there has been many feeling she has been exploited. However, in Yutaka Oe’s case, when he was a child he was involved in a traffic accident, suffered brain damage and missed much of his schooling, yet even his illiteracy has been the butt of jokes.
Here’s a YouTube video of him in action, but as embedding is disabled, please follow this link.
He’s throwing the opening ball at a baseball match, but he wore his right-handed glove instead of his left, which explains his first pitch.. Read the rest of this entry »
One great feature of many Japanese supermarkets and department store food floors is that they often have tasting corners, the subject of a recent survey from iShare.
Demographics
Between the 26th of November and the 1st of December 2009 542 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.5% of the sample were male, 30.3% in their twenties, 33.6% in their thrities, and 36.2% in their forties.
Whenever there’s free sweets, cake or fruit I’m always sure to grab a bite or two, and will occasionally partake of other free samples. One always hears stories about people effectively having full meals by circulating around the free sample locations, but I’ve never tried it for myself. A lot of the posh department stores also have alcohol tasting corners – I wonder if it’s possible to drink enough to get drunk? I’ll have to try one day…
I have zero interest in brand bags, and fortunately my wife grew out of her habit long before we met, but looking at this recent survey from iShare into second-hand, pawned and rental brand bags I see there are still a lot of addicts out there!
Demographics
Between the 19th and 25th of November 2009 502 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.2% of the sample were male, 33.5% in their twenties, 33.5% in their thirties, and 33.1% in their forties.
It’s quite amazing to see that just about one third of the younger Japanese female population has bought a brand bag and another fifth have had one bought for them, but then again when out and about at the weekend it does seem like half the girls are carrying an LV tote… Read the rest of this entry »
Here’s a bit of a curious survey from iShare, looking at various aspects of dreaming.
Computers and cell phones are making most of the respondents to this survey from iShare ill, with stiff shoulders and dry eye being the two most common symptoms of 
With Facebook perhaps poised to do a full-on launch in Japan, iShare decided to look at Facebook’s requirement for real names, and 
This recent survey from iShare into 
Let’s end the year on a low point, by looking at a recent survey from iShare into 
Bah humbug! To get you into the Christmas spirit, or to give you something to grumble about this festive season, according to a survey from iShare into 
It’s coming up to the New Year, and one of the traditional television events is NHK’s Kohaku Uta Gassen, or the Red and White Song Contest, where a team of male singers and male-fronted groups compete against the female side in an excuse to highlight the popular music of the year, both pops and the traditional Enka form. There’s usually about twenty to thirty acts per side and the whole affair starts around 7 pm and continues until just before midnight. However, this year the satellite channel BS11 is showing the Anison Kohaku 2009, Red and White Animation Song 2009 at the same time, so iShare decided to conduct a survey into 
One great feature of many Japanese supermarkets and department store food floors is that they often have 
I have zero interest in brand bags, and fortunately my wife grew out of her habit long before we met, but looking at this recent survey from iShare into 
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